"Look, Marimo. Your children are leaving."

- Weird scientist lady talking to a headless ghost, Muv-Luv Alternative

"Houston, the tower is clear. They're all yours."

- some guy talking to Billy Bob Thornton, Armageddon

Meister of P. H. Malachite (Int. Col. III)

AKANE SOIR

Substituted her life in devotion to

Master KAZUYA KRAU-XEKU

A. R. 313-332

Shizuru knelt in front of the six-foot-tall crystal gravestone with her head bowed in deep reverence. The marker had been placed in an ordinary spot along with all the others so Akane wouldn't be isolated from her older peers. A younger Coral or Pearl glancing over the memorial pillars in curiosity might not even notice the slightly different phrasing on her epitaph. It was just as she would've wanted, since she was the modest and quiet type, and (with the exception of her heroic final performance) she always hated drawing too much attention to herself.

"It's nice to see you again, Sister. You'll be happy to hear everything is going well. It's just been a little harder to get things done since you flew off without us." The Bewitching Smile Amethyst spoke while her hair covering her lowered face like an umber veil. Out of respect, she withheld adding the comment "I suppose that's how you've always been."

Before she continued, one of her hands curled into a soft fist. She swallowed a small lump in her throat.

"The wedding was very beautiful. Irina won't be the same wife you would have been for him, but she'll be a faithful companion. She'll bring the voice of reason Cardair needs so it can remain at peace. She'll help him move on. She'll make sure he has plenty of little ones so your legacy, his legacy, and her own legacy all continue on. It's the best any of us can do without you."

Shizuru privately started to smile as she kept her head down.

"She's a little scared of herself. The same way you used to be back when you were just my pupil and she was just your room attendant. She certainly has a soft spot for your Master, but she's afraid she'll never live up to your expectations. I told her not to think of herself as a Replacement Akane. She's just covering your chores while you're taking some well-earned rest."

After Shizuru had appointed herself as Kazuya's Otome, she called Irina in for additional tech support at the palace… and to see how Akane's friendly old Academy assistant would interact with Akane's cherished Master. Irina wasn't the only one interested in testing how little variables affected each other in larger functions.

Her official job duties were just to coordinate with Kazuya and help improve the palace's security. At first, the chemistry between the mourning boy-emperor and the studious nano-technician amounted to trading official words back and forth while sometimes catching each other in an occasional longing glance. They would be reviewing blueprints, or reading some technical manual together, when suddenly their eyes would accidentally meet at the same time and they would just awkwardly stare at each other for a few seconds. But eventually—maybe just because they shared the grief of losing a very close friend—their relationship stepped over professional restrictions and blossomed into something more tender. Almost a year later, the girl who used to work long days in Garderobe's basement debugging Fumi's monitors and exchanging trivial banter with the rest of the tech staff was on her way to becoming an empress.

It happened innocently and romantically, the way Akane would have wanted. It happened organically, the way Shizuru was aiming. Everything needed to be packaged with a delicate ribbon that said "Things played out this way because that's just how it was meant to happen," and not "Garderobe made this happen." Officially, the Academy held no influence over the policies and future successions of individual nations. If the public ever thought they were favoring one country or one regime over another, it would generate immense friction between all the surrounding countries. The Columns were meant to be humble servants to the entire world, and they simply guarded the natural order.

That's why Akane had been such a valuable oddity in the Otome system. Her (mostly accidental) crimes of stealing an active GEM device a few years ago, ironically, provided the perfect alibi for Garderobe's direct involvement in everything she did. They could have set up a booth for the entire Column committee directly beside Kazuya's throne if they really wanted to, but oh no. They weren't there to whisper advice in the emperor's ear or provide him an extra layer of unofficial defense. Nothing about their actions overtly said they were there to make sure Kazuya lived long enough to became a wise popular ruler in his country. They had to operate closely with Akane because she was a probational Otome with some concerning service history, and they had to make sure she didn't cause any more minor international scandals from now on.

If anyone had asked Mahya why she spent so much time away from the campus and babysitting Cardair's royalty, she would have just stuck her tongue out and blamed that horny brat Akane for forcing her to be there. Nudge nudge, wink wink, and she'd never draw attention to the fact she had Kazuya on 24/7 guard watch. And when Mahya's informants (who were clearly just spare chaperones for Akane, obviously!) alerted her that a massive Slave offensive was being planned against the palace in a few days time, suddenly she was called back to the Academy on some private matter. For her rushed replacement, they sent the strongest berserker Otome out of all of the Columns: Shizuru.

Take a sweet (and sometimes erratic) girl like Akane, who desperately, desperately just wanted to settle down and have a family with her precious Master, and combine her with an empire that desperately, desperately needed a gentle non-violent ruler just like her Master to end its decades of hostility and suffering. The need for a new lineage was there, her desire to create that lineage with her own loving care was there, and all the Columns needed to do was make sure she didn't lose her Otome qualifications to him too soon when he still needed her protection. Shiho's assignment to the King of Florince (Akane's original Meister contract, and the only thing she ever really slacked on) would keep things "predictable" in that country, while Akane was helping establish a new peace-seeking regime in Cardair.

Everything Akane had done after she graduated to Meister rank—right and wrong—had been a blessing dropped in Garderobe's lap. Her childish, love-crazed, and somehow brilliant choice to abandon her first contract and flee with Kazuya hundreds of miles away gave the Academy a special clause to remain stationed in Cardair and ensure its reconstruction went smoothly. A more stable Cardair ruled by a young and cheerful royal couple meant there would be less heated rivalry between Cardair and Florince. And if that recurring rivalry could be eliminated for good, it would end the possibility of another disastrous conflict where Otomes were forced to draw weapons against their own Sisters—their best friends, mentors, and rookie subordinates—and had no choice but to fight one another to the death to fulfill their duties to the belligerent rulers their lives were bound to.

The last such war five decades ago had provided approximately 78 percent of the gravestones filling the memorial crypt today. It didn't just leave detrimental effects on Cardair and Florince, either. It was responsible for splitting the kingdom of Lutesia into two bitter halves that remained fractured to this day, and it wiped out countless peaceful family clans in An Nam. If another hypothetical war escalated out of the previous one, the Founder's most conservative estimates anticipated it to be an ELO scenario—Extinction Likely for Otome. So much had been riding on soft-spoken Akane and her nervous little Master, and they never even realized it.

Shizuru's smile started to falter under her auburn hair.

"Irina will continue to spread the school's philosophy all through her life, long after she's severed her official ties with us. She'll stand at Kazuya's side as a confident empress like… you were going to be."

Her emotions briefly got the better of her. She couldn't stop herself from turning her head away from the gravestone as anger and regret suddenly attacked her conscience. She sighed in failure and forced herself to face the clear blue pillar again.

She started to raise her head and opened her eyes. Her gaze was level with the base of the monument.

"I helped your Master forge a stable kingdom in your absence. I took care of him like you wanted. I cut down all of your enemies so no one can ever hurt him again. I hope you don't mind, but I even took some of my own pleasure out of avenging you."

Her eyes slowly glanced up to Akane's name at the top of the gravestone.

"I've done everything I can to return the favor that saved your Master's life, and my life. Now I hope you'll finally leave me and Natsuki alone." Her lips curled into a joking chuckle.

The violet uniformed Meister slowly rose back to her feet. She crossed her hands gracefully over the front of her apron bearing her insignia. She was no longer a Column, since that spot had been filled by Chie shortly after Akane's passing. But she was no longer assigned to any particular country, either, since her position as Kazuya's personal retainer had gone to Yayoi once it was safe for Shizuru to return to her duties at the Academy. Yayoi had her hands full guarding Kazuya and Irina, Chie had her hands full making sure all the younger girls behaved themselves, and Shizuru served as an administrative Otome similar to Maria and Yukariko.

She tipped her head toward the gravestone a final time as she spoke.

"I hope you rest well. I'll come to visit again soon, Sister Akane."

Shizuru turned and quietly left the memorial tomb with a relieved mind.

Author's notes:

I thought the first chapter really needed some sort of conclusion. It's another case of "I have no idea where to go with this scenario, so here's this thing."

This ending probably goes in a much more peaceful direction than the first chapter was setting up (with just some vague implications Shizuru went on a routine Shizuru rampage off-screen), but I think it provides more satisfying closure this way. I apologize if you were expecting to see Kazu-kun put on a mech suit and telepathically strangle dudes in a red hallway.

I don't know why I keep picking Yayoi as the new Cardair Otome after Kazuya gets married (I did the same thing in "To Live and Die in Cardair"). I guess it's because she's another Cute One, she has the same name as Yayoi from Smile Precure, she has the same hair as Inori from Fresh Precure, and she just seems like a logical continuation to Akane's Animal-Themed Cuteness Overload? She's more Shiho-oriented than Akane-oriented in canon, but if you've read any of the rambling notes in my other HiME / Otome fanfics (like that whole Doctoral thesis I wrote at the end of "Red Dusk"), you'd probably know Akane and Shiho are basically interchangeable.

Otome episode 19 has that one really nice one-off scene where Chie is walking around the empty Academy by herself, reminiscing how it feels lonely since all the other Trias-rank characters (Akane, Shiho, and Nao) have taken their separate paths in life without her. Nao graduated early to become a Column, Shiho is just being weird, and Akane is missing so she can return later as the world's cutest version of Viper or La Femme Nikita. I think this story is a nice emotional payoff for Chie. Now she gets to inherit a spot in the Columns that was TECHNICALLY Akane's previous spot. It kinda restores their close sisterly connection from when they were both trainees, and it reunites her with Nao.

I have "Now We Are Free" by Hans Zimmer and "Asteroid Chase/Shuttle Crash" (also by Hans Zimmer? Or Trevor Rabin? Or the Metal Gear Solid guy?) dueling together in my head right now and the way I'm imaging it sounds like Pirates of the Caribbean going completely insane.

Did you know Yuna Ito (the Gundam 00 "Trust You" ending singer) recorded her own version of "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing"? Weird. I wonder if that's what they play in the timeline where Tieria goes into Veda to manually set off the nuke while everyone else makes it back to Earth.